


Skin Prayer

by Angelas



Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types
Genre: F/M, Irreverence, Language, Loss, Profanation of Vows, Religious Imagery & Symbolism
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-07-06
Updated: 2015-07-06
Packaged: 2018-04-08 00:00:20
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,845
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4282965
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Angelas/pseuds/Angelas
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Hawke is to attend the Comte's midsummer fete, and her mother plays matchmaker in all the wrong ways.<br/></p>
            </blockquote>





	Skin Prayer

**Author's Note:**

> so there's a long version and a short version that I have in mind for this. which I end up going for depends on a few things.  
> i've waited so long to write this. ;-;

**oOo**

She tells herself it’s Sandal’s doing.

She tells herself the sky is pink like those tacky little woven bow-things Merrill somehow pins high into the curtains, that fancy Hightown parties don’t actually exist.

She tells herself she’s hungry. She tells herself a lot of things.

“Darling,” Leandra presses. “ _Please_ hear me out.”

Hawke groans. Taps her foot. Claws her hair back with one hand, puts the other at her hip.

Luckily, the door to her room is shut enough to keep everyone else who isn’t her comfortably out of it, but...

The _idea_ of her mother still there behind it, her thin white hands flat and sadly lax on the rough brown wood of the rough brown door, the pleading look she must have in those large and tired eyes, the ones that make you feel shitty about ever being, or _doing_ —

Maker’s arse.

“Mother,” says Hawke at last. She swings the door open, giving her best shot at a tortured sigh. “You and I both know how much I entirely _loathe_ those sorts of things, I’ve been talking to you about it for the last three hours, in fact, or was it...years? See? I can never remember. Maker, I feel so woozy all of a sudden—is it the carpet?”

“Oh, Marian, please, reconsider it just this once—”

Hawke pauses. Nobody calls her that. Too intimate, too personal. Hawke almost feels bad.

“Mother.”

Gently, she grabs Leandra by the shoulders. Takes a breath, musters her courage. Maker help her.

“No.”

For a small and miraculous moment, Hawke thinks it’s worked. But then her mother's shoulders begin to loosen, her gaze drooping down low like a rock towards the ground. Then it starts getting a little too quiet. For a little too long.

“Perhaps... Perhaps you’re right.”

No, that’s wrong.

Leandra Amell never admits defeat. Let alone, one this easily.

But hadn’t that been the whole hope here?

Hawke gnaws at her lip, looks to the side. Both sides. Then she looks down at the space between them. That’s when she sees it. There, dangling like a blood-lake in her mother’s arms. Long velvet lochs of red fabric clutched like a lifeline in Leandra’s hands.

Drapery?

No, a dress.

She looks at her mother, a thin film of tears already there at the far corners of her eyes. Practiced forth from the night before, no doubt, or Hawke wasn’t an actual mage living in the upper echelons of Kirkwall.

She wants to punch herself, to throw herself at the wall. Something— _anything_ —that might put her out awhile. Wants to cry out fire or demons or templars—

But, shit. That dress, she’d know it anywhere. So she bites her lip and she swallows her pride.

“Alright, alright,” Hawke ushers, slamming her mother in for a brief and semi-awkward hug. “You got me. Unfair and un-square, as per your devious plan—”

Immediately, Leandra springs up, beaming bright and blissful like the sun, the woeful look she wore just seconds before all but perfectly gone.

“Oh, sweetheart! I promise you won’t regret it!”

Okay.

Maybe _sometimes_ it was worth signing away her own death warrant just to see her mother like this.

**oOo**

In times of inconceivable crisis, there was always Varric to fall back on.

So Hawke dresses quickly the next day, ready and willing for a long and half-drunken night at the Hanged Man.

She gets to Lowtown swiftly enough, unperceived in the thick fog of that night. No bandits nor random crooks jumping out at her, either. At the time.

Inside, the tavern is an ell away from cracking open. As expected. Evening and all. Hawke makes her way through and around the ongoing maze of cackling drunkards and scampering barmaids, eyes set on the small pillar of steps which lead always to Varric’s modest little palace. She finds him there. Writing away at letters.

“Hawke!” he greets, setting a huge pile of papers aside. “You alright? You look a little… _Paler_.”

“Oh, it’s awful,” Hawke tells him, sighing and swooning herself down into one of the stone-cut chairs. “Something terrible happened last night, Varric. I think this may be the end.”

“Need a little help setting things on fire? Should I go fetch Blondie?”

“No,” says Hawke, straightening herself up just enough to pour out a pint. “At least, not on Tuesdays. You know I love Tuesdays.”

“Alright, alright,” he says. “How about three rounds of twine, a high dragon, and a half-broken table for the next _extra_ terrible thing that happens?”

She grins. “Now, don’t get _too_ carried away. Though I do like the one with the multi-colored griffon and the thrice-headed snake.”

Varric chuckles, shaking his head. She’s bullshitting, and he knows it.

Yet, Hawke knows he wouldn’t pry even if he wanted. She almost goes along with it, almost gets herself to laugh it off. Surely her mother wouldn’t mind another minor screw-up on the list, surely the whole thing would slip her mind—

Hawke slumps, cradling her head. On this day, she knows she is bested. Again.

Varric takes notice. “Hawke?”

“Alright, truth," she sighs. "My mother. She has officially doomed me to appease the bodiced confines of a...” She clears her throat, shame knit high in her brow. “Dress. By Thursday evening.”

“Maker, think of the children!”

“Did someone say _dress_?”

Of course Isabela would eavesdrop on the whole thing.

“Did I say dress? I meant stairs. Good stairs to climb these days. Those stairs. Over there. I think I’ll just—”

“Oh just look at you all nervous and fuss-like,” Isabela quips, hips rolling forward like the tide. “I know _dress_ when I hear it.”

Hawke tries her best not to look. Knowing Isabela, that was the plan. Look once, watch long enough, and the beans are bound to spill right into her hands.

“Well, don’t just sit there, love.” She smirks, stealing the empty seat on the opposite side. “Give us all the details!”

“No details, actually,” Hawke tells her, busying her fingers with the loose threads on her sleeve. “Varric would tell you. He knows all about the nothing going on here.”

“Varric chooses not to be a part of this,” Varric says, sliding his pile of papers back in front of him.

Damn it.

“So,” Isabela croons, leaning forward with her arms tucked tight beneath her chest. “Who’s the lucky man?”

This close, Hawke can taste the ocean on her. The smell of the storm in her hair. Gaze keen like the daggers she bears, a coast’s breeze for breath.

Hawke looks the other way. When it comes to Isabela, it’s quite honestly her safest bet.

“Oh, I don’t know,” she drawls. “What have you thought of the weather lately?”

“Ugh, don’t give me _that_ again.” There’s mischief inked in on the ends of Isabela’s lips where there really shouldn’t be. “ _Someone’s_ got to accompany Lady Hawke to the Comte de Launcet’s summer banquet, am I right?” As always, Hawke’s silence says more than just words. Isabela giggles. “It _is_ the Comte de Launcet’s party-thing, isn’t it?”

“How do you even—?”

“Crazy story, a wild parrot sat on my arm and told me all about it!”

Hawke rolls her eyes, rakes her hand firm into the roots of her hair. Isabela, of course, does not relent.

“Oh, I know,” she smirks, leaning ever forward. “How about you take Fenris along? All taut and pretty-faced. Oh, just imagine his glowy bits lighting up the hall, violently fisting his way into anyone who looked at you wrong—”

“Isabela, stop.”

“Or maybe Anders? All broody and blue and staring at you with those lovelorn cinnamon eyes—”

“Varric, please make it stop—”

“Okay, fine. How about the Arishok? Big and thick and massively rigid, enough to stuff up the room.” She sniggers, leaning in close for a tittering whisper. “Or _two_.”

“Isabela!”

**oOo**

The next day rolls by slower than most.

Hawke falls out of sleep to the sound of rain slapping against the open sill of her window, feeling quite keenly the after-effects of yesterday’s mess.

She sits up and cradles her head, feeling the dull throb of her poor skull throb like a living wardrum on the flat of her palms. She groans, almost rues having gone.

Because, veiled amid all the raunchy innuendos, Isabela did have a point. A point Hawke hadn’t really thought about before, _didn’t_ really want to think about before. Or right now.

She stands, dressing herself into the simple set of garb she kept always at her nightstand. Quick and easy, with no twining fastenings to clasp. Perfect for when not out killing during the weekends.

She paces a bit, restless and half-awake. Only a matter of seconds before the morning knock at her door took place. And though she quite often salivated at the thought of Bodhan’s Maker-touched cooking, she was not at all ready to face her mother’s pre-party fretting that more than likely awaited her presence downstairs.

She glowers at the thought, trudging her weight towards the open gust of the window. Looks down on a whim, and sees it.

There, splayed over like a landslide on the wood of her dresser. All tucked up and flowy, the one-thing that started it all. The same dress her mother wore to the masked ball in Kirkwall, over two decades ago. The one her father snuck into in order to tell her goodbye. A goodbye which ensued their midnight elopement, long years of runaway life, and three children. Then, from quick stroke of illness, he died. Thinking back, Hawke could still recall her mother’s quivering figure bent over the rim of their bed, sobbing into the mementos the memory of him had left behind.

Hawke’s eyes soften. This dress was one of them.

She lifts her hand and brings her fingers to run slow along the fabric. It felt like new. Looked like new. Or newer. Glossy and red. Pleated gently in all the right places with woven cords at the bodice. Patterned lace at the fringes, an off-shoulder collar that shot down with short claret flutings. Black bow at the back, crimson tulle-thread for garters.

She slips one on her wrist, tugging the hems free from its under. Artfully seamed, it formed the shape of a flower.

Not so awful, she thinks, sliding it off. And it truly wouldn’t have been at all, if it weren’t for the nug-taken corselette that peered back at her from the shadows.

If anyone in Thedas were to ever manage into that and _still_ look pretty, it would have to be Merrill.

“Love, are you in there?”

Hawke starts at the sound, realizing now her weird fascination with the garter in her hand. She slams it down, stuffing it under the dress. Her mother likely wore that thing once, for Maker’s sake.

“Um. Yes! In here, alive and well,” she stammers, going over to the water pitcher. She pours out a glass, spilling half of it on her nightstand. “Tits. I’ll be down in a second!”

Silence. “Is everything alright in there?”

“Yes! Just…watering the plant!”

“Please hurry, love. The market will open soon.”

Hawke nearly chokes on herself. “Market? Market. What market? For what?”

Even from where she stood she could still hear her mother’s sigh coming from behind the door. “Shoes, darling. All I ever see are those…belted things you wear. Last time I saw them on you they were crusted in blood. I was thinking pink satin slides, actually—”

“Mother, we can talk about this.”

“Marian, please. I’ll be downstairs.”

Fuck.

**oOo**

Bodahn always did have a charming way with making loaf and tusket-strips impossibly delicious.

But even through each thrilling forkful of it, Hawke couldn’t shake off the perpetually pensive look on her mother’s face. So after a whole lot of nothing between them, Hawke allows herself to finally take the bait.

“So. What’s on your mind, dear mother? Is this the part where we start talking biscuits?”

"Maker's breath, you know it’s not good to speak with your mouth full,” Leandra tells her. “You’ll catch your tongue.”

Goodness and relief. Just a scolding. So far.

Then, a moment later, a smile happens.

Hawke’s stomach stiffens.

Immediately, she puts down her fork, preparing her escape. She eyes the closest exits of the mansion. Front door or cellar, straight to Darktown. Anders would cover for her. Totally would.

“I was wanting to surprise you with the news tomorrow evening, but I…” Leandra chuckles, tucking away a tress of hair behind one ear. “Well, it’s all just too exciting to just keep hidden. I had a talk with Seneschal Bran last night while you were away. He’s really quite kind—”

“You know, I think I’ll just be going right over there for a bit—”

“He’s got a son about your age. Quite handsome, too. Dulci invited him to the fete. I wish I’d known earlier. You two would make such a wonderful pair—“

For the first time in a long time, Hawke thinks she might just vomit.

“Maker, I _just_ remembered! How about those pink shoes you mentioned?” she sputters, shooting up from her chair faster than she’d ever shot up most things. “Perfect time for shoe-grazing, don’t you think? The Orlesian guy? What’s-his-face at the corner usually opens up right this hour!”

Thankfully, Leandra bites hard enough to leave the rest of her sentence behind. In a flash, Hawke is at her side, leading her towards the foyer by the arm. Lopsided smile and all, she starts naming off all of the hat shops Isabela ever brought up. Even takes the liberty to make some up. Her mother brightens the more she blabs. The rain is gone, the sun is up.

Things couldn’t possibly get any worse.

**oOo**

They stop at several different stands, at several different districts all across Hightown.

Stops which mostly consisted of Hawke's mother feeling up on every pair of pink shoe she came across, only to deem it unworthy moments after. Hawke lumbered along a few steps behind, imagining herself elsewhere. Far. Like, down at the coast. Or on the craggy tors of Sundermount. Wrecking shit, listening to Aveline’s lectures. Blankly staring at different parts of Keeper Marethari’s face whenever she talked on forever—

“Marian, are you listening?”

“Huh? Oh! Yes. Absolutely. These are so lovely, I can hardly see the stitching!”

Her mother smiles, nodding. “Yes, I was thinking the same. But look at the frill on the sides. Surely it’s a little much, don’t you think?”

“Oh, but a little much is exactly we need, mother,” Hawke tells her, taking the other shoe in her hand. “Just look at the cute little gem-things! A nice contrast against all the…non-gemmy parts!”

“Not just any gem, my lady,” the merchant tells them in a terse slur of thick Orlesian accent. “Sapphires. Favored most by the Empress Celene. Some even say that a few of the brightest grace the low trimmings of her favorite gown.”

Her mother, Hawke sees, does not look impressed.

“Oh, Marian, I don’t know—”

“There is no price I will not pay,” Hawke interjects, whipping out her coin purse once and for all. “How much for the pair?”

“Thirty-eight sovereigns, messere.”

“Thirty-eight it is.”

He hands them over in a neat little box, knotted silk ribbon and all. Hawke pays her due, everyone’s happy. Yet, someplace in the background, Leandra is two bits away from fainting.

“Are you sure that was a good idea?” she frets, hands fiddling in front of her in genuine worry. “It’s a nice shade of coral, and the sapphires match your eyes wonderfully, but—”

“I’ll live,” Hawke says, maneuvering them both towards the estate without her mother’s noticing. “Besides, did I ever tell you how much I simply adore sapphires?”

And it _works_. That is, until Leandra stops them halfway across the bustling thoroughfare, far too close to Chantry proximity for Hawke’s own personal liking.

“Love, I’d like to stop by, to leave a prayer for Bethany.”

Maker’s sac.

“Mother,” Hawke states, glancing only once towards the tall and ominous and very religious building. She never ever goes in there unless she absolutely has to. Like, that one time Isabela wanted her to jump someone. Or that one other time she slinked in to collect a pretty sweet bounty from a very…sparkly-armored guy. “You know I don’t like it much in there.”

“I understand you and the Grand Cleric don’t get along well,” Leandra tells her. “But.. Just this once, Marian. Please come with me.”

Hawke looks away, nearly breaking her neck in the process.

She should run, she should break into sprint and climb up on to the high-tops. She should keel over, lay low in her closet for a week. Her mother’s pleading eyes, however…even inside a stone box she’d be able to feel them boring tiny heartsick holes into her spirit.

“Fine,” Hawke puffs, and it takes all of her willpower not to take it back. “But _only_ today. Because I’m nice.”

Her mother, of course, beams.

**oOo**

 


End file.
